Word.ws English Dictionary

tent-pole

tent-pole is the alternative form of tentpole.

Meaning of tentpole

Noun

tentpole (plural tentpoles)

  1. One of the poles used to hold up a tent.
  2. (US, attributive, figuratively, usually) A large-scale entertainment production that is a major source of revenue for its studio, television network, or investors.
    • His [James Rolfe's] reasoning dances around the simple fact that has set this innocuous-seeming movie apart from its fellow blockbusters this summer—that it’s a tentpole genre film starring women.2016 May 18, David Sims, “The Outcry Against the All-Female ‘Ghostbusters’ Remake Gets Louder”, in The Atlantic

See all 3 meanings of tentpole

Forms of tent-pole

pluraltent-poles

Phrases with tent-pole

Questions about tent-pole

What is tent-pole the alternative form of?
Tent-pole is the alternative form of tentpole.

Words near tent-pole in the dictionary

  1. tent rocks
  2. tent wine
  3. tent wines
  4. tent-maker
  5. tent-makers
  6. tent-pole
  7. tent-pole movie
  8. tent-pole movies
  9. tent-poles
  10. tent-sack
  11. tent-sacks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tent-pole (page history and authors); tentpole (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “tent-pole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tent-pole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.